Back to the future: ten one-of-a-kind cameras from the 21st century

At the turn of the 21st century, consumer digital cameras really took off. Technology was evolving at an incredible pace, and camera makers came up with features that we now take for granted, most notably live view on DSLRs. There were plenty of unique ideas going around, as well. Some were genuinely useful, while others may leave you scratching your head. In this article, we take a look at ten cameras that have stood out over the last thirteen years.

Comments

I loved my Sony 707. Ever since they came out with the R1 I've been waiting for a slightly longer, stabilized version of the R1 - something the manufacturers should dhave been able to do years ago - but NOOOO... The manufacturers still have their heads up their asses so I am still using my 707, and liking it. Meanwhile, the best the manufactureres seem to be able to do to update the 2 marvelous cameras is for Nikon to release their P7800 (which is roughly equivalent to the 707 - marginally better in a number of ways but not as good in others) and call it "new." Duhh!

Pentax actually did the original R&D on eye-controlled focus but never decided to keep going on it to put it in any of their cameras. Canon picked up the ball and ran with it. One of its issues was on the EOS-3 if you had the AF set to 45 point it would often switch points from the time you wanted the picture till the time you pressed the shutter. As a result many pros just left it in 11-point AF mode. One reason why most DSLRs still have between 9-15 AF points. Too many is often too much.

"...there's no getting around it: I LOVE THIS SONY. Some cameras you just take to. It's slowly become evident to me over the years that some camera designs are more than the sum of their parts, more than a collection of features. You can't discover this from a catalog or a spec sheet. They just work better; they're harmonious; they inspire more affection, more loyalty. They fit you."

An updated version of this camera with the RX100's sensor would be revolutionary

New sensors come with higher resolution and/or higher read-out speeds, requiring new processor/memory, which often require new power conversion circuitry. What is left are body and screen. Few would be happy today with 180kpixel screens, and bodies are cheap.

What about Olympus E100RS? Only 1.2Mpx but it captured photos *before* you pressed the shutter. Once it was half-pressed the camera started taking photos, and kept the last five in a circular buffer. Make a full press and the buffer was kept and of course the current view was recorded. And the next photos until you release.I can't understand why no-one else has used this concept (or do you know different...?) but it's great for action shots waiting for a particular event such as a bubble bursting.I eventually sold mine because my thing is landscape shooting and it didn't do a lot for that <g>

Canon and Nikon both do the same in their low-end point and shoots now, actually, under different names. At the end of the day you get a little video of all the photos you've taken with five-ish-second slow-mo clips leading up to them. Seems kinda gimmicky to me.

Just about any Fujifilm camera does this - it's a fairly standard drive mode with a few variations. The X20 has a circular buffer of 8 photos and you can choose how many shots before and after the press you want plus how fast (3, 6, 9 or 12 fps).I have only used it for fun, not in anger though I wish I did have a life so active that did need it :).

The only problem is that I lost the battery and Sony no longer supplies replacements in my country. I've purchased no-name replacements to continue using the camera but their life is inferior and the remaining time indicator is predictably unreliable.

How is it possible to charge $1,000 for a camera and then sentence it to certain death by no longer supplying it's dedicated battery??

Really? I thought that Sigma was still the hold out? My SD14 certainly doesn't have it and I thought the "Merrills" didn't either but I might well be wrong there, it's a development that might have snuck through my defenses.

I bought a K-01 and though it seemed a bit BIG and did not have an optical viewfinder, I loved everthing else about it... Built in-the-camera shake reduction, and HDR, et al. Amazing photos with the pancake 40mm lense, and I was hooked. So all of the pentax lenses fit, and I was having fun again, taking pictures..So then I bought a "K-5" and decided to let my canon system go. I'm not going to worry too much about whether-or-not RICOH takes PENTAX down a uncharted path, I'm gonna go along regardless. Cuz I still like their GLASS... RJM

There were some good concepts and some toys that want to try luck and test the market and eventually fail. I had seen some fanboys supported the toys but not able to produce good picture with the expensive toys. This type of company wasted too much of money, even if they hit the lottery still not able to cover the cost that been wasted. Hope they wakeup and design camera for photographer not fanboys.

I'm pleased that my Sony R1 made the cut. It was indeed revolutionary when released and despite its lowly 10 meg sensor, compared to today's all singing all dancing cameras, and its relatively poor high ISO standards for today's tastes, its Carl Zeiss lens makes up for everything. And with this camera, you do have to wonder why we need so many megapixels for most uses.

The sensors weren't the problem. It was the software. Thanks to the advances in image quality offered by Lightroom 4 and Photoshop 6, I can now make awesome 16x20 prints from my 10 mp Nikon D200 even when I shoot at ISO 1600. It's ironic that image processing technology has only now caught up to the sensors of 8 years ago.

I still have my Olympus C-8080 (should have been in this list of odd cameras), that your reviewers liked, so I bought one. Excellent optics, weird zoom (electric, with four fixed focal settings, no zoom), SLR-like design, articulated display (lousy in daylight), for its time, OK EVF, and excellent with a flash on top. Still use it for macro and flash shots. 8MP sensor, OK even today!

Total misery if you liked shooting backlighted objects, as both the display and EVF turned into purple rivers (the photos came out OK).

Then RAW was unusual, and it sure had that - speed demon, too, as it took about 30 seconds from RAW shot to RAW shot!

Not sure about Tord's timings, unless this is for bracket exposures in RAW, but an individual RAW locks the camera for 12 to 13 seconds before it frees up for the next one. Still, only 5 shots a minute, though. Pretty poor. In comparison an R1 will flush a RAW file in just over 2 seconds.

It was this slow flushing time in RAW that eventually led me to sell the camera and get an R1.

Also Tord's reference to four fixed focal settings and no zoom refers to the magnfication factors in replaying images and which are fixed at 2x, 3x, 4x and 5x, not the lens, which is a true zoom.

I think that in those days digicams had their designs emerged out from a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. The 707 shows the way. The design was swallowed from marketeers. Cams still adopt a design as some film is still at their backs waiting to roll from one side to another, a rather ridiculous approach based only in our habits. I think a great opportunity was lost in terms of design and functionality mainly because of the stereotype for what a true good camera should look like...BTW E-10 was a great cam and a lot of people in those days earned a lot of money shooting catalogs and such for web purposes...

I think it's funny that Sony has several cameras represented, but none of them are SLT-series, which in principle has been the greatest new thing in system cameras for many years (even though it wasn't their invention in principle, as it is a revival of certain film camera tech).

Everyone knows SLT is a passing thing between two eras. It is a compromise between two technologies: dedicated PDAF senors on SLR's being useless when the viewfinder is off and CDAF-only from the main sensor. On-sensor PDAF will kill the SLT because you will no longer have any reason to send any light to a second sensor for focusing. SLT lets you get most of the advantages of the looming on-chip PDAF era today while still utilizing a separate focusing sensor. But it's time will soon come.

Oh well, I suppose they came up with, and then perfected, the process of milking their customers to the n-th. degree by selling vastly overpriced gear that is either intentionally crippled in firmware, or completely incapable of achieving a consistent and reliable focus.

I had a great experience with the Sony 707, other than the stupid Memory Stick format. I did a lot of good work with it. These days, I'm also having great success with the Pentax K-01. I guess I'm attracted to odd designs!

I had the Sony F707 and often used the little-known accessory wide angle lens attachment (screw mount to front of fixed lens) for architectural and interior images. It was an outstanding camera and I certainly received "my money's worth." Expensive Sony Memory Sticks were my only complaint at the time.

My first digicam was the $1000 Kodak DC260, which took an average of 50 seconds to write a one mp image to card. Next I traded my Leica M6 for the Minolta DImage 7 with a 200 mm zoom - a great breakthrough. Then the very good quality Casio EX1000 10 mp pocket camera (later cheapened by Casio), followed by a Nikon 8700 then 8800 bridge/zoom cameras, followed by a Panasonic FZ-50 and then the Panasonic G1. Going for better quality in a small size, got the LX3, then got the Leica X1. After the X1 got the LX7, Nikon Coolpix A, then Leica D-Lux6, then Leica X Vario, then Monochrom and Noctilux. The last camera cost more than all of the others combined, and it feels like it weighs as much as all the others combined.

A reasonably good collection of strange digital cameras since it all started.

Of all the innovation over the years, I would say the Sony Hologram AF system and its night vision capabilities is perhaps the most useful. It is unfortunate Sony did not develop this feature further to include it into their recent cameras. I am using my Sony V1 with this capability until today. There is no auto focus hunting in the dark, even in total darkness. Isn't that wonderful?

Sony are an irritant. They always produce, every once in a while, a product that has the Wow! Factor. Unfortunately, they then usually either cut corners somewhere in the manufacturing process which leads to unreliability and the their worse failing is that of suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder; they just can't seem to follow anything through for any length of time (e.g. Hologram AF, Night Shot, the R1 project (just think how cool that would be with an updated sensor or fullframe 35mm sensor (which I guess they will now claim they have done with the RX1).

I started out my digital photography journey with Sony cams, first with the F505V; in fact I have owned all of the Sony cams (except F828) mentioned in the article. However, I have now given up on Sony for the reasons mentioned above.

So true... As a company, Sony is like this mad scientist---brilliant, restlessly innovative and unable to stand still. But, unable to focus or develop its creations with any kind of logical process. We owe it a lot in terms of contribution to the industry, yet as a customer it drives you crazy. I work in the video industry, and while Sony garners much respect there, people laugh and roll their eyes about the dozens of products and formats and codecs it has pioneered and then carelessly abandoned.

I wish someone (FUJI or Canon) would build a modern version of the OLY C211 Camedia... a non-Polaroid printer mated to an even better digital camera, maybe a bit smaller with prints a bit bigger? WOW that would be a fantastic machine! I enjoyed the original and was amazed by its capabilities. Time for version 2.0~!

The K-01 looks much better in the flesh than in photos. It's biggest flaw was the lack of an EVF option. Because of its focus peaking and k-mount compatibility I would still be tempted by a secondhand one at a good price.

I took a lot of great photos with the Sony 707. (I took a lot of bad ones too). The swivel back really allowed for convenient viewing when holding the camera at "interesting" levels. I do miss that feature.

When considering how to move up from compact small sensor cameras, the Sony R1 was on my list, as well as the Canon 30D and the entry level Sony Alpha. While I'm glad I moved to the much more flexible Canon system, the R1 still seems like it could have done many things.

I hankered after the Sony 707. too, but not as much as the R1. When taken as a whole, Sony are a surprisingly innovative camera company. From the round end Cybershots to the 707 and R1, and now to the RX100 and RX1. No one else makes cameras like Sony.

I met someone with a Casio TRYX early this year! She could easily take selfies with friends, then use a wifi card to send them to her phone instantly.

I'd have include Olympus's E-1 which was (I think) the first DSLR with ultrasonic sensor cleaning, a method that has pretty much become the standard and only decent method of auto-cleaning dust off a sensor.

Casio TRYX and its latest model TR-15 is selling hot cakes in Far East Asia, often it can be fetched at same price as RX100 II... (well above its RRP)

Even on ebay it can be fetch well over $500, over twice the RRP of $250 when it was released, it's pretty rare for camera to go up in value in this digital age, I think the author haven't done enough research before written it off as failure.

Don't knock the Olympus E300. It's the most comfortable DSLR I've ever used, a really sensible design. Sadly, the media is full of plebs who couldn't see beyond the fact the shape wasn't "conventional". The E330 was cramped and uncomfortable by comparison. I had both.

I still have (and use) the E-300, along with a bunch of other cameras.It is a solid (and heavy) brick of a camera without many "frills".I didn't care much for its "follow-up" the E-500, which to me always felt like it was falling apart (rather loose, creaky plastic case).

I had the 707 & 717, which we used for infrared. Alas, Sony set these cameras so the lens was always wide open when used in infrared "night shot" mode. Perhaps it made sense to lock the lens wide open for use at night but it was a drag during the day because you needed lots of neutral density and still had no depth of field.

Then I saw Sony's reasoning. eBay sellers had started claiming Nightshot was an "x-ray" feature that let you see through clothing. I never put this to the test and doubt it was true (eBay) but it may have discouraged Sony from making a daylight infrared camera. And then came Fuji's forensic infrared camera.